Pringles MSL - Season 2 - Week 1

During the past few days before the almost concurrent start of the Starleagues of MBCGame and Ongamenet there obviously was a lot of talking going on. How would everyone perform? What was to be expected? The general opinion shifted mostly towards the MSL being the more promising of the two. But can it and will it actually live up to its hype? That's what we are here to find out!

The opening match naturally featured the defending champion Savior, who was up against Terato. What would normally not have been one of the more noteworthy encounters actually had an intense atmosphere, because of what happened at the group selection ceremony. Read about it here.

So on the one hand we had one of the most fearsome Zergs and on the other hand a Protoss who has been around for a while now, but who never made any real impact with the battleground being one of the two completely new MSL Maps - Longinus.

The two time MSL winner hatched orange at 7, while Terato warped in as purple at 11. No experiments from Savior early on as he started with a solid 12 Hatch at the Natural, followed up by a 11 Pool. Terato opted for a Fast Expansion build, warping a Pylon and then a Forge at the Natural. Seeing as how Savior went for a late Pool with his scouting Probe he was able to safely put up the Nexus before making any Cannons. Even a Gateway was to be seen before any Cannons were being built.

Following the standard Zerg reaction to a Protoss Fast Expansion Savior placed his third Hatchery at his Min Only Expo, Terato scouted it immediately. He then proceeded by taking his main Gas and made six Lings to get rid of the nasty scouting Probe. As soon as it was dead Savior started morphing his Lair. The Zerglings were placed in a nice arc at the Natural's entrance to prevent any further scouting attempts from Terato, who by now had his Natural running and an almost finished Cybernetics Core.

As soon as his Lair finished Savior dropped down a Spire and took the Gas at his Natural. Meanwhile Terato picked the tech tree towards Templars, while also starting the typical +1 Ground Attack Upgrade, obviously expecting ground troops by Savior. Savior decided not to power too much, only making a low number of Drones after the Spire was started and morphing most of the few Larvae he had to spent until the Spire finished into Lings instead, which by now had their Speed Upgrade completed.

Terato felt something was up and hastily started several cannons at both his Nexi, but it was too late. Rallying his 3 Hatcheries to Terato's Natural Savior simply ran over him with nicely microed Mutas and small waves of Zerglings. With an angry look on his face Terato resigned.

This is what it looks like, when Savior toys with OGN Sparkyz

There is not much left to say, except that Terato got totally outplayed, outthought and outclassed here. Savior obliTeratoed him.

On to game 2, the only encounter of two team members this week. Yellow[name] has been around slightly longer than Bifrost, but both of them have yet to prove if they can reach the absolute top or if they will stay rather mediocre. Considering they practice with each other all day long and hence know their respective opponend inside out I was expecting to see a rather tense nice game.

The map they were to play on - New Peaks of Beakdu - has been changed so heavily for this season, that I personally would not even have give it the same name, but whatever. TvZ stats on it were 12-9 before the game, although you have to take into account that most of the games were played on the old version.

Bifrost's orange Command Center spawned at the northern location and YellOw[name] hatched in green in the south. Both went for rather conservative openings with Yellow[name] building a 12 Hatch at the natural, followed by a 11 Pool and a third Hatch above his Ramp, and Bifrost starting with a two Barracks build, adding Gas and an Academy after the 2nd Depot.

Because the map is relatively complicated and it is impossible to even try to keep track of all the smaller and bigger battles which were fought throughout the 30+ minutes on basically every single quadrant, I will have to give you the long story short.

YellOw[name] played with Lurker/Hydra/Ling/Defiler with some additional Scourges all game long, while Bifrost went the usual Infantry with Tanks and Vessels. For a while it seemed as if Bifrost was going to get the upper hand in the long run, but YellOw fought the more cost effective battles with incredible use of Defilers, not solely with Swarm, but also with the underused Plague on Vessels and Infantry groups. In the end Bifrost was unable to shut down enough of YellOw[names] income, while constantly being harrased at his own Expansions. Bifrost ran out of money and finally lost all of his long way mining SCVs and YellOw still had 2 mining bases, so Bifrost had to type GG. (Please, Day, don't crucify me if I got this game totally wrong, I'm not sure I could grasp its essence)

Game three was easily the most anticipated game of the first MSL week. On the one hand Nal_rA, who placed 2nd after Savior last season, and on the other hand no less than the Emperor himself. The Emperor, who may be playing the last Starleague of his career. Both players have a long history and before this game the statistics displayed a comfortable 9-2 in Dream Toss' favour. They are also both known for their strategic genius and the ability to adapt to new and unusual maps, Blitz is such a map.

An orange Nal_rA warped in on the left and a brown Boxer landed on the right. While Boxer started with a standard Depot, Barracks, Gas build, Nal_rA decided to play double Nexus. Seeing this with his scouting SCV Boxer only built a single Vulture and followed directly with a Command Center at his natural on his own.

Boxer picked off a single Probe with his first Vulture and before even bothering to add a 2nd Factory or troops he showed us, why he is the Emperor and why he has the balls: he expanded again! Have you ever seen a Terran counter a Protoss FE build by expanding twice before? I certainly have not. And against a player of Nal_rA's calibre?

Anyway, Nal_rA went for a Robo after two Gates, wanting to do some Reaver harass. By the time his first observer scouted Boxer's third CC his economy was already flourishing like Boxer was a macro player and 1-1 Ground Upgrades were being researched. It didn't help, that Nal_rA flew his Reaver filled Shuttle directly into two Turrets on its way to harass Boxer's main, losing it all. Before Nal_rA's third Nexus finished, Boxer was adding five Factories at once for a total count of 7, all while Nal_rA was still at 3 Gateways.

Clash of the Titans' Armies

Ra added some Gateways, Templar tech and two Starports for Carriers. At the 10 minute mark Boxer moved out with about 50 supply of 1-1 Vults and Tanks plus a few Goliaths and added two more Factories, making it 9. Crawling through the south part of the map Boxer slowly pushed Nal_rA's growing force of ground troops backwards towards the hill just south of Ra's natural, while rallying all of his Factories to that area. When the opposing armies first clashed Boxer was at 2-2, too much for a unupgraded Protoss ground force composed of only Zealots, Goons and a lonely Reaver. Not even the two and then four Carriers could do anything against a bitter Protoss defeat, as Boxer had so many Goliaths he could just let them shoot down the Interceptors without even bothering to aim at the Carriers. When Boxer's Tanks started to shoot on Nal_rA Nexus at the Natural Dream Toss GGed.

Nal_rA < Boxer

We got served a typical boxerish dish with a fine topping of oov-inspired macro. This is what we want Boxer to look like every week from now on, for the rest of this MSL! The game was a bit one sided, maybe because Nal_rA lost a bit track of his own plan after losing his first Reaver Shuttle for nothing. Also I think we still have to see strategies evolve a lot on this fully new and pretty complicated map. I personally hate to play on it, but I enjoy watching games on it!

Just like the first game, the fourth and last one was to be fought between a Zerg and a Protoss. Pusan or the Spirit Toss is by far the more reknown of the two players, so far he has a third and a fourth place in OSLs under his belt, Silver on the other hand has accomplished about nothing so far.

But PvZ is PvZ and Arcadia seems to be favouring Zerg at least a bit in this matchup, so let's see what happened. Pusan warped in white at 5 and Silver hatched orange at 1. At a Drone count of 12 Silver sent out 2 Drones, one to his Natural and one to his Mineral only, which proved to be wise, since Pusan already had arrived with his harassing scouting Probe. Silver placed his Hatch at the MinOnly and sent the other Drone back to mining. Meanwhile Pusan started a Nexus at his Natural and then a Forge next to the Pylon he had warped in at the entrance near his Mineral only, when he had left his base with his scouting Probe.

Did I mention I had never seen a Terran counter a Protoss FE with a double Expo before today? I think I did. And here is something else I had never seen before: After having placed his third Hatchery at the Natural Silver tried to Drone drill the warping Cannons at Pusan's entrance, but had to cancel his attempt when Pusan hastily brought in some Probes to defend.

Silver then opted for a Hydra tech with a few Lurkers, while whoring Drones like a black man and Pusan chose to build Corsairs (with +1 Upgrade on the way) out of 1 Stargate as well as Reavers. He also built a bazillion of Cannons at the entrance to his Mineral only. To continue the macro path Silver placed Hatcheries at the 11 Main Base and its Natural, started upgrading and massing Hydras. Seeing the new expansions being made with a Probe Pusan found it save to take his Mineral Only.

A Reaver drop killed a total of four Drones at Silver's Min only, but except for a few Overlords this would be the only units Pusan managed to kill outside his base all game long. Silver brilliantly found a spot outside of Cannon range at Pusan's Natural and dropped a single Lurker there, forcing Pusan to stop mining for a short moment. Equally brilliantly Pusan got rid of this very Lurker by using Reaver splash on one of his Probes! Much harder than with say a Zealot.

Herbie (?), the Martyr Probe moments before its transition to the afterlife

About the only good moment of Pusan in this game. Silver just Hydra macroed his ass off, and before Pusan was able to build enough units our of his newly built handful of Gateways, he just ran over him sending wave after wave after wave of Hydras, forcing Pusan to surrender.

Silver > Pusan

Not as bad of a rape as game 1, but Pusan never had a real chance either. I wonder what strategy might work better, the map seems a bit too open for Reaver/Sair to really work.

Nice reports, but you used a term wrong. You said Savior powered heavily, making little drones and going for lings. Powering is focusing on improving macro effieciency, e.g., more factories, gateways, workers, expands.

Did I mention I had never seen a Terran counter a Protoss FE with a double Expo before today? I think I did. And here is something else I had never seen before: After having placed his third Hatchery at the Natural Silver tried to Drone drill the warping Cannons at Pusan's entrance, but had to cancel his attempt when Pusan hastily brought in some Probes to defend.

What did you guys think of Pusan's sudden tech switch to gateways?I thought it was a terrible idea, but I'm not a progamer, and I don't have any clue what it takes to get two straight top 4 finishes in OSL, so what do I know?